Lyrics to Live By Volume 2 – Sadness and Sundays

My mood is often affected by such arbitrary factors such as weather, time of day, and day of the week. I don’t know what it is, but I know I am not alone. I hate dusk. To me dusk is depressing. The day is dying and the cold darkness is creeping in. Once it’s dark, I’m okay again, but that transition between day and night is depressing. I should add though, that in my mind, dusk does not exist in the summer months. In the summer, that same period is called sunset and it is warm and beautiful and romantic and soft and lovely. In fall and winter it is cold and hard.

There is no dusk lonelier, nor more depressing, than a Sunday evening dusk. In fact, Sunday is, in my opinion, the loneliest day of the week. It is no accident that Church is held on Sunday. It’s no mistake that the NFL plays the majority of its games on Sunday. It is a sad day in dire need of hope and distraction; enter church and football. Sunday is the lonely nursing of the resulting hangover from Saturday night’s fun, Sunday, especially in the cold of winter is dark even when the sun is shining. Sunday is the deathbed of the weekend and the dying breaths of the week. Sunday is sad. Always has been. I assume, it always will be.

I know I am not alone in feeling this way, because Kris Kristofferson wrote, and Johnny Cash brought to life, a beautifully sad and lonely song that truly captures the way Sunday has always felt to me. It’s all here, the sounds, the smells, the emotions. One of my favorite songs because it puts into words my feelings of my least favorite day. Gotta love a song that sounds like the songwriter was following me around one day. Enjoy.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad
So I had one more for dessert

Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt
Then I washed my face and combed my hair
Stumbled down the stairs to meet the day

I’d smoked my mind the night before
With cigarettes and songs that I’d been pickin’
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Playing with a can that he was kicking

Then I walked across the street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken
And oh it took me back to somethin’
That I’d lost somewhere, somehow along the way

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
I’m wishing, Lord, that I was stoned
‘Cause there’s something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone

And there ain’t nothin’ short of dyin’
As half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleepin’ city sidewalk
And Sunday mornings coming down

In the park, I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl who he was swinging
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs that they were singing

Then I headed down the streets
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing
And it echoed through the canyons
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
Oh, I’m wishing, Lord, that I was stoned
‘Cause there’s something in a Sunday
That’ll make a body feel alone

And there ain’t nothin’ short of dyin’
Thats half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleepin’ city sidewalk
And Sunday mornin’ comin’ down